Nails and Health

Nail, skin, or hair samples may help detect cancer. When the nail clippings of 22 breast-cancer patients were subjected to an X ray that reveals the molecular organization of proteins, they all showed an extra ring, unlike healthy patients' nails. Distinct ring patterns were also in the nails of colon-cancer patients and the skin of melanoma patients. Study author Veronica James, a biophysicist and adjunct professor at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia, previously described a change in hair that was highly accurate in diagnosing breast cancer. But a commercial version of the test was less reliable, so challenges remain in translating her protocol into a widely available screening.